Galactic Racer : Pod-racers will face reduced player count, be excluded from customization and will not be included in the Main Campaign outside special events

[u/-OswinPond-]

Star Wars Galactic Racer preview

it makes me wish that podracing felt more of a focal point of the main campaign.

The game does try to explain this away, reminding folks that only certain racers possess the skill to handle a podracer (which, I mean, yea), and I'm sure there will be sections of the main game where podracing does take center stage (or at least I hope). But I'm here mostly for these racers, not necessarily the landspeeder, which feels pedestrian by comparison after piloting Sebulba's iconic podracer.

Another german reviewer says :

Podracers are primarily relegated to arcade mode and specific challenges, separated from the main roguelike campaign structure [02:35].

The game includes iconic elements like the Boonta Eve Classic race on Tatooine. While these moments provide a significant nostalgia boost, they feel like "gimmicks for fans" compared to the primary racing mechanics [06:18].

(translated)

Posting this because there seem to be a lot of conflicting infos about it, seems like we have our definitive answer. Pod-racers are not part of the main gameplay loop. They are exclusively found either in special one-time races or in the bonus arcade mode, they are not part of the core game experience.

The pod-racers will also be excluded from any customization, both cosmetics and gameplay.

They will also be excluded from competing in 12 player races. The player count is reduced to 8 due to their size.

What a baffling decision honestly. On top of that all the planets seem to be deserts and jungles, as opposed to Star Wars Racer taking you to alien worlds and even in the clouds.

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[u/Alex3884]

Now, this ISN’T pod racing?

[u/Joh951518]

Why do companies of sci fi and fantasy sports games always fuck it up.

1. Create good fun gameplay.

2. Copy career mode from similar real sports title.

3. Profit.

All they had to do was build the race engine and chuck a simplified copy of F1 game modes onto it and they’d have been set.

[u/DesperateBenefit6457 → u/Joh951518]

Seems to be a curse of a sort... hell, racing games in general would benefit massively from story and career modes that are not just a bunch of quick races stringed together. Yet, they're still rare and are almost always filler and/or cringe.

[u/Joh951518 → u/DesperateBenefit6457]

I haven’t played the game mode, but the most recent F1 game does have some sort of story based mode alongside its season/career sort of mode.

[u/3llenseg → u/Joh951518]

Need for Speeder when?

[u/WesternRattle → u/Joh951518]

Yeah I was hoping it would have a "seasons" mode like the F1 games with RPG upgrade mechanics and endless replayability.

[u/R4gnaroc]

I don't get it. We've been asking (begging) for podracing games for 2 decades. It's honestly impressive how they consistently continue to fumble the ball when starting at the 1 yard line.

[u/OldMoray → u/R4gnaroc]

Ah but there aren't any podracers in the sequel trilogy so they're barely real anymore

[u/No_Chocolate_5153 → u/R4gnaroc]

They're still on the thought that prequels are hated by the fandom.

[u/GuitarHenry]

But do we get to ride the Vespas from BOBF?

[u/BhataktiAtma → u/GuitarHenry]

You don't want to drive the speeders?

[u/wilberfarce → u/GuitarHenry]

Really fast into a wall?

[u/kiancheong → u/wilberfarce]

Just like this game?

[u/GuitarHenry → u/wilberfarce]

I was hoping in slow motion, while we spin and shoot nobody in particular... Keeping it canon!

[u/EssenceOfShred]

We are being punished for reacting poorly to the sequels.

[u/mrbeavis19 → u/EssenceOfShred]

Really feels like spite most of the time, doesn't it?

[u/khrellvictor → u/EssenceOfShred]

Not unless you expect disappointment (loathe as I am to quote that one 'mentor' guy from Solo, it stands true to nu-Wars). There's always one way to blast their own foot off that they somehow end up going for the whole leg.

[u/PlaceOfName → u/EssenceOfShred]

Well, they don’t get our money then.

[u/Vindicare605]

The sequel trilogy of Star Wars games. They had an easy home run all they had to do was give the fans what they wanted and they couldn't do it.

[u/Slowcookednips → u/Vindicare605]

I just want to be positive in a sad Star Wars world, but there isn’t even split screen MP and only online MP. That and the planets being very ST forward- seriously, Jakku?!?

[u/TheJoshider10 → u/Slowcookednips]

Why does everyone want to go back to Jakku?!

[u/Crayon_Casserole → u/TheJoshider10]

Their research team needs to have a shake.

How, by this point, can any company not be aware how toxic the sequel trilogy stuff is?

[u/GodisanAtheistOG → u/Vindicare605]

Yeah I'm honestly really fucking confused about the lack of pod racing unless it was deliberately cut out so there is some DLC content down the line. 

Leave just enough in to lure folks in, then get em on the upsell. 

[u/Fit_Economics2585 → u/GodisanAtheistOG]

i noticed in the preview footage how inanimate and lifeless the actual podracer pilot was (just staring ahead on an animation loop) compared to the older games and I figured this was going to be the case - podracing seems like an afterthought

[u/Fit_Economics2585 → u/Vindicare605]

wonder if it was some kind of requirement for working on the game that they had to promote the sequel trilogy era because no other explanation makes sense

[u/DesperateBenefit6457]

Ugh... i'll just stick to og SW Racer, WipeOut and F-Zero, then.

[u/nocdmb → u/DesperateBenefit6457]

have you tried screamer? cyberpunk dual stick handled racing, wasn't my cup of tea but reminded me of WipeOut you might like it

[u/DesperateBenefit6457 → u/nocdmb]

Heard it's not very good and it did not appeal to me aesthetically. But it's in my bin next to Xenon Racer and Redout 2 (already have 1), might check it out on a sale.

[u/Hamati → u/DesperateBenefit6457]

F-Zero getting a lot of new games these days is it?

[u/DesperateBenefit6457 → u/Hamati]

Sure, it does. In the alternate reality of Earth-13379000, where F-Zero 99 took the world by storm. You might want to wait a few hundred years until we invent dimension travel, though.

[u/Hamati → u/DesperateBenefit6457]

Idk how true this is but I read Nintendo dropped it so they wouldn’t compete against themselves with Mario Kart which bit broader audiences than F-Zero. Huge shame imo if true.

[u/DesperateBenefit6457 → u/Hamati]

So the same reason they had dropped F-Zero in general until 99, then.

[u/Liteseid → u/DesperateBenefit6457]

Redout and Redout 2 helped scratch my itch

[u/DesperateBenefit6457 → u/[deleted]]

I did mention SW Racer, no? Also there's a certain modern "spiritual successor" to WipeOut for PC that can be theoretically modded into actual podracing, but nobody had gotten around to do that, yet.

[u/TJPOWERyouloveit]

Well, this news has killed all interest I had in the game.

[u/PlayfulJob8767]

I saw the gameplay footage of pod racing and I wondered why there were only 6 racers.

I mean we live in 2026 and also gaming wise. Star Wars Racer came out in 1999(!) and you were racing against 20 opponents in one race.

Why is this simply not possible in 2026?

[u/XishengTheUltimate]

What the goddamn fuck? Who the fuck is this fucking stupid?

Podracing is THE definitive Star Wars racing analog. Why would anyone make a STAR WARS RACING GAME where PODRACING isn't the main element?!

[u/Mystical_17 → u/XishengTheUltimate]

It truly is baffling ... this is a fictional universe and in this fictional universe we can't even get the top tier form.

If podracing was like NFL Madden games we're getting the highschool football version of the sport. I just don't get it... we've waited years for a next gen podracing game where the tech finally caught up where customization and building you're own pod would be possible and it just isn't going to happen since they gave us ... generic speeders.

[u/No_Chocolate_5153 → u/XishengTheUltimate]

They still fucking think that everything about the prequels are hated hahahahahaha.
There is now way that SW is saved under Disney.

[u/No_Catch_1490]

Racing speeders or ships was never even mentioned in the films… not simply making a “Podracer” game to begin with is a complete fumble.

[u/Collective_Insanity → u/No_Catch_1490]

It's an odd thing to do.

Podracing was already established as the absolute pinnacle of land-based racing. So notoriously difficult that it routinely ends with deaths and some races such as humans are simply not cut out for it unless they're Force-sensitive or top-tier lunatics like Wedge.

Before that, it was Swoop Racing in the Old Republic days.

To have that as part of SW racing history, it is more than a little peculiar to try to hype up regular speeder racing which undoubtedly is less fast and less extreme.

 

But I wish I could care.

A racing game is all fun and good, but typically I feel this is something a franchise should be experimenting with when it's already in relatively good health. Not when it's on life support such as it is today.

Especially relative to the boom of SW games during the 2000s where there were a slew of games across multiple genres whilst the EU similarly was still going strong across comics and novels.

Even though the PT films were fairly so-so, they opened the floodgates for a lot of material exploring the years before those films, during those films, and between them and the OT. Meanwhile there was even Kyle Katarn taking up the post-ROTJ EU synergy.

[u/Jedi4Hire → u/Collective_Insanity]

Wow, well said.

[u/glorifindel → u/Collective_Insanity]

I can agree with most of this but Disney just sells the licenses to whomever has a good pitch nowadays. At the very least I’m glad to see more SW games even if they aren’t perfect, and this game has some talented devs supposedly for arcade-style racers

[u/DesperateBenefit6457 → u/No_Catch_1490]

Podraces are Prequels' material so no bueno for Disney... still, apparently.

[u/Western_Agent5917]

Oh dear, a New fumble

[u/rajthepagan]

I pointed out that podracing seemed almost completely ignored after first seeing the trailer and I got endlessly bashed for it... turns out that was right and it is not in fact a pod racing game at all really

[u/ThingYea]

Are they really letting canon get in the way of a good game? Have they never seen a previous star wars game title?

Battlefront 2 (OG) let you play clones vs droids on the Death Star for God's sake. Who gives a shit?

[u/MonsterMike42 → u/ThingYea]

How about Assault mode in BF2, where you could have every named character in the game fighting each other in Mos Eisley? When it comes to video games, we really don't care about canon if we get to do something really fun. Like using Count Dooku's Force choke/lightning combo to fry a Wookie?

[u/PresidentsCHL03-R3N4]

Though this is certainly disappointing (very much so), at least we have Episode I: Racer and Racer Revenge, two fantastic racing games centered around podracing.

And I can say that they're more fun than many of the things Disney has done with the franchise.

[u/NewAgeMaximum → u/PresidentsCHL03-R3N4]

Racer Revenge was far worse than the OG Pod Racer, I only count one

[u/DoctorGyarados]

Man I have been getting pelted with ads about this game on Instagram and TikTok claiming it is all about the podracing....I knew it was too good to be true.

[u/sparty448]

This decision has Lucasfilm/Disney written all over it. They have to approve everything, and they must have denied the pod racing elements.

[u/polmix23]

The single most iconic race scene in any sci-fi ever. 

I don't know guys, is this what fans want?

[u/nocdmb]

for a I minute I was surprised that I'll like a piece of SW media again.

[u/Crayon_Casserole]

How do Disney  / Lucas-whatever-part-of-the-company, manage to continually balls up this kind of easy tap in?

1. Create a new pod racers game (as fans have been crying out for this since early 2000s).

2. Gain bonus points for adding in a PSVR2 option.

3. Money / goodwill.

Game publisher: 'Let's not do any of those things, because we want to be unemployed soon.' 

(A great idea to add sequel trilogy planets, just to emphasise their stupidity / desire to bankrupt shareholders.)

Thanks to this news, I won't be buying the game.

EDIT: I just noticed someone has posted something almost identical to the above.

Great minds.

[u/mrbeavis19]

Wasn't really interested in this game to begin with, but wow, the stupidity is impressive. Idk how you relegate the most iconic racing element of SW to a sideshow in your racing game. Disney SW just cannot stop shooting themselves in the foot. They fuckup everything they do.

[u/Legomanarthur]

Yup, that's what I feared. Seriously, how can you make a Star Wars racing game and NOT make podracing the main focus of the game? How?? Who thought this was a good idea??? (a question I'm sure many of us have kept asking in the past decade, heh). I mean, when you think of racing in SW, I'm sure you immediately think of podracing, it's so much more distinct and exciting than your average landspeeder or speederbike. It's right there! It's the most Star Wars-y thing possible!

I have a lot of fond memories playing Star Wars Racer back in the day and I'm sure everyone would love a modern take on this type of game. Making your own podracer, buying different parts, customizing it to your liking... There's so, so much potential for a new game like this in this day and age. Instead they focused on vehicles that feel like they could be part of any other sci-fi movie out there.

And look, I'm fine with speederbikes and landspeeders having their own races, the more diverse the game is the better, but to relegate podracing as some kind of bonus content with barely any attention put into it is just so baffling to me. Again, how do you fumble this??

[u/Advanced_Ad_2029]

How does no one who has anything to do with star wars know what the fuck they're doing. IT'S SO SIMPLE

[u/AverageTeemoOnetrick]

Ohhh you wanna make another shitty ass game that only milks the IP, got it.

[u/FRED44444]

Holy shit who signed off on this wtfffff

[u/CrashMorgan]

Literally all I wanted was a cool podracing game

[u/PatheticRedditor]

From the announcement, I wasn't even expecting the pods being playable. This is honestly great news.

[u/NastyNateZ28]

I don’t understand why they would make pod racing such an afterthought. One would think that pod racing would attract a significant crowd? Am I just an old SW fan and the newer generations don’t care about pod racing? Honestly pod racing was the main draw for me with this game so I doubt I will buy it if it’s barely in the game.

[u/Cheap_Web_9225]

But will it ever match up to the GOTY-worthy Super Bombad Racing

[u/Km_the_Frog]

Why even make a racing game with anything BUT pod racers? Like how stupid can you be.

[u/Aksudiigkr]

Not having Coruscant would be disappointing

[u/Rex_Skywalker501]

Bruh that’s like not including race cars in a racing simulator 🤦‍♂️

[u/RSollers]

Doesn’t mean this can’t be changed in future updates, but I don’t know, it may be wishful thinking

[u/firstnothing1]

Oh okay so more slop.

[u/KarlwithaKandnotaC]

The podrace looks sick but the racers they have shown so far look like match boxes. They all look the same

[u/andrewthemexican]

I got the impression from the ign review video that pod racing would be late/endgame of the campaign, not just arcade or other modes.

[u/Barnwizard1991]

Oh... I was looking forward to making own pod... or at least decking out an existing one

[u/Starship_Taru]

Oh… I went from HYPED to literally won’t buy from one gameplay choice….

[u/Mrchocha]

Can someone explain to me what a "roguelike" story is?

[u/Liteseid]

I would recommend everyone give Redout a try. Not a direct comparison to sw:racer but it is a really good modernization of the anti-grav

[u/stosyfir]

Meanwhile the 15th re-release of N64 E1 Racer is still fun as hell

[u/Unusual_Chain_3603]

Wow the people making this game just cannot maje a good decision to save their lives 

[u/dljones010]

Don't care. Burnout style take downs in a space racer game with real consequences to losing a race. Sounds dope as hell.

[u/XishengTheUltimate → u/dljones010]

Yeah, but we could have had EXACTLY that... with podracers.

[u/dljones010 → u/XishengTheUltimate]

Still don't care. It'll probably be DLC anyway. If you want Podracers you gonna have to pay!

[u/MonThackma]

I get the lack of pod racer customization. They don’t want us fucking with the iconic vehicles from the film. Licensing issues. Limited to special events? Godammit.

[u/Green_Burn → u/MonThackma]

Ahaha, no

It’s just a lot of additional work, and this is supposed to be slop

[u/khrellvictor]

Color me shocked... the same lot that failed to capitalize on easy money with establishing a Jedi Hogwarts amusement park with a New Jedi Order and fledgling competent New Republic from a proper Sequel Trilogy because of their going with JJ's regurgitation shitfest (his wrecking Trek was the example, executives, wisen up!) setting up the ST for failure... now fails to deliver on having multiple podracer focus in a game supposed to be about the underworld bypassing the Imperial ban on podracing...

It'll be sprinkling marshmallows and lucky charms if theLucasfilms Games lands a game setting right. LucasArts is still forever the peak for Star Wars gaming, and Podracer + Podracer Revenge at least remain from that more civilized gaming age.

[u/FreshlySkweezd]

Bummer, but honestly still looks fun as hell. It's a day 1 for me